One Yank and...they're off

Posted by Lewis on August 15, 2003

In Reply to: One Yank and... posted by R. Berg on August 13, 2003

: : What does "One Yank and they're down" mean?
: : I know it's from WWII, but I don't get it...

: It's about women's underpants. British women's. British women's when American soldiers ("Yanks") were in England during WWII. Get it now?

the other version was just as common. I think that it started as the punchline to a music-hall joke.
"It's all over for the Americans - over-fed, over-paid, over-sexed and over here" - or variations
were a common sentiment at the time.
You have to understand that things were pretty tough by the time the GIs arrived and their conditions were much better than the British had been experiencing for some time - "buying" (whether deliberate or not) the affections of the local girls was not appreciated by the menfolk.